“An Everybody Thing”: COO Learning Community Co-Op Learning Series Explores a Thriving Movement
Nick, an employee owner of Patty Pan Cooperative, prepares for the day at a local farmers market. Patty Pan’s facility is one of the businesses we’ve visited during our series.
For a long time, co-ops were thought of as “a hippie thing or a farmer thing,” Fred Medlicott told us, “but they’re also an everybody thing, and they always have been.”
Fred was one of the experts sharing advice for cooperative businesses at the Ecosystem Builder Day event, March 17 at Kin On Community Center in Columbia City, as part of the Self-determination, democracy, and solidarity: King County Cooperative Learning Series.
During the conversation, five panelists described their work to create more worker-owned cooperatives and employee-owned enterprises. They’re helping co-op businesses get established, find capital, and secure tax credits. They’re also changing state polices to help co-ops thrive.
This session was recorded; we’ll be making the video available later this spring. Till then, here’s an overview of the series and some highlights from last week’s event.
Exploring Co-Ops as an Economic Development Strategy
For the past six months, the COO Learning Community has been exploring cooperatives, or co-ops, as an alternative and innovative economic development strategy. These cooperatively-owned businesses, many of them employee-owned, are part of a thriving movement. Their business structures facilitate a more equitable and community-owned and accountable economic system.
Here are just a few of the local co-operative models we’ve explored.
Patty Pan Cooperative, a familiar sight at local farmers markets and stores like PCC Community Markets, has been an employee-owned co-op since 2013.
The nonprofit community-based organization Villa Comunitaria supported and incubated the development of the Rayito de Sol childcare cooperative, a collective of 12 Latine women childcare providers and entrepreneurs.
Equinox Studios wanted a space where artists can create art and live affordably. Equinox now calls itself “Seattle’s Creative Industrial Complex” and is undertaking a large affordable housing development in Seattle’s Georgetown neighborhood.
At our January 14 event with Equinox Studios, Sam Farrazaino (left) talked about their evolution from a space for artists to a co-op housing developer. He also took us on a tour of the Georgetown Steam Plant, where an art installation was underway (center).
Co-ops are:
A model for economic equity, building community norms and capacity for self-determination, and shared decision making and power; and
An approach for building a regional ecosystem, for power-building, skill and knowledge sharing and capacity for community-owned and -led solutions and assets that sustain and generate community.
To connect with the experts, we’re partnering with one of Seattle’s co-op leaders.
Mike Seo, our partner for the co-op series.
Connecting to the Co-Op Community
We’ve been partnering with Mike Seo to offer this series. Mike works for a nationwide cooperative developer and investor, Shared Capital Cooperative, helping community members start their own food, housing, and worker co-ops. Shared Capital is itself a co-op, as Mike explained in his presentation on March 17.
Outside of his role with Shared Capital Cooperative, Mike established the Seattle Cooperator Meetup. He describes it as “a casual chill meetup for Seattle metro area cooperators.” Mike is also a member of the City of Seattle’s Community Involvement Commission. Contact Mike to join the Seattle Cooperator Meetup group.
Cooperatives in Washington state got a boost in 2023 when the Legislature passed a bill making it easier to establish a co-op. Read a Seattle Times article about it: WA small businesses see opportunities in handing ownership to workers | The Seattle Times
NWCDC Gets Co-Ops Off the Ground
Fred Medlicott talks about how his organization helps aspiring co-ops as Michelle Mayther looks on.
Fred Medlicott’s organization, Northwest Consumer Co-op Development Center (NWCDC), helps worker co-ops and housing co-ops start or convert in the Seattle area. Fred also told us about NWCDC’s free 10-week course that could help you get your co-op off the ground. General Start-up Co-op Academy is a 10-week free course, March 31 – June 2, that “takes you from ‘dream stage’ to ‘shovel ready’ in 10 weeks.”
Save the Date for another opportunity Fred mentioned: The Cascadia Co-Op Conference, August 25-26 at Seattle Parkview Unitarian Church in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood.
Fred noted the importance of cooperation among cooperatives. “Those kinds of relationships are why co-ops succeed.” He said his vision is that in 5 years co-ops would be visible on every street. “Everyone I talk to says, ‘Oh, I didn’t know that was a co-op.’” He’d like to see that people would be able to identify not just a credit union or a supermarket as a co-op, but many more types of businesses.
Delta Fund Envisions a Mondragon in Washington
Next up was Brian Boland, co-founder of Delta Fund and Unlock Ownership Fund. Brian talked about loan funds, equity funds, and non-profits that promote employee ownership. He noted that what brought him to this field after a career in tech was realizing that “the economy is wired toward corporations, extracting from labor.” Delta Fund is focused on poverty alleviation, racial justice, and economic justice, and the goal of Unlock Ownership Fund is to build wealth and well-being in historically underinvested households through expanded asset ownership.
Left: Brian Boland describes how his funds provide vital funding to co-ops; Fred Medlicott sits to the right.
Brian noted that in the “silver tsunami” of baby boomers aging into retirement, there’s an enormous opportunity. Many of them own businesses, and they’ll need to do something with their businesses -- “hopefully they’ll sell to employees.” He talked about donor-advised funds (DAFs) where $280 billion is sitting “not doing social good.” Unlock Ownership Fund is designed to make it easy for anyone to donate, or anyone with a DAF to take money out of the stock market and invest it in community revitalization and employee ownership.
Brian said his vision is that Washington “would be talked about in the same breath as Spain’s Mondragon,” the world’s largest co-op. Read about Mondragon in The New Yorker article about them.
New Opportunities for Co-Ops through State Government
Linda Womack of Department of Commerce describes new opportunities from the state.
Bringing good news from Washington state government was Linda Womack of the Washington State Department of Commerce. Linda’s team manages the Washington Employee Ownership Program (EOP) at Commerce, established by the Legislature in 2023 to promote employee ownership statewide.
Linda reported that Washington state, as of 2022 data, had 125 active Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) representing more than 239,000 participants, plus 73 co-ops, and two Employee Ownership Trusts. She said $2 million a year is allocated for tax credits under the Business & Occupancy (B&O) tax through June 30, 2029. She walked through the process that businesses can use to transition to an Employee Ownership Program, which she called a valuable but complex process. It can pay off through tax credits via “a simple 4-step process.”
Linda echoed what Brian had noted about the potential for businesses converting to employee-owned, noting there are 70,000 businesses in the state owned by people age 55 and older. On a personal level, she said she has a friend who would have sold her business to her employees if she had realized that was a possibility two years earlier. Linda said the Washington State Legislature is considering action on co-ops right now.
Brian commented later, “Why don’t we dream that of those 70,000 businesses, we get half of them [as employee-owned]?”
Michelle Mayther is a B Corp expert helping businesses get certified.
Doing Good Is Good Business – B Corps
Michelle Mayther is vice president at Washington State B Corp Collective, an umbrella organization for B Corp certified companies in our state.
Michelle described B Corp businesses as “mission-driven companies that balance purpose and profit.” She listed some of the many ways that “doing good is good business.”
“B Corps use the power of business to do more than seek profit. They use their profits and growth to positively impact their stakeholders – and the planet.” She shared numerous examples of ways in which B Corps use these practices, including the fact they’re far more likely to offer bonuses or profit-sharing to non-executive workers, and nearly six times as likely to screen suppliers based on positive social and environmental practices.
She said examples of B Corps in Washington state include Ridwell, Boon Boona Coffee, and Aslan Brewing Company.
Recap and a Look Ahead
Whitney Johnson, COO Learning Community’s strategy lead, tells the group that the series will continue throughout this year.
The series originated as a response to a request from a participant in the Economics for Emancipation King County learning cohort. The COO Learning Community worked with Mike Seo in 2024 to begin these conversations with the people, groups and organizations who have worked through the realities, challenges and technicalities of worker-ownership, community/resident-ownership, and structures that share power, decision-making and accountability. Ultimately, the series is aimed at creating stable and affordable housing, creative, and commercial spaces; and jobs where workers are paid well and treated fairly.
The Learning Community will continue to co-host these sessions and respond to community interest in learning about the pathways and current resources, models and templates for generative and equitable economic outcomes. The theme for 2025’s sessions – Self-determination, Democracy, and Solidarity – describes our intent in providing learning and connection building spaces that contribute to the growth and strength of organizations, models, pilot projects, systems and policies that support community & ecological wealth and well-being.
Here’s a quick recap of the conversations and site visits featured in this series so far.
2024-25 Cooperative Conversations and Site Visits
At the Pidgin Cooperative event, we heard from Zach Pacleb of Pidgin Cooperative and Cheryl Markham of People’s Community Law.
Event 1: Pidgin Cooperative w/People’s Community Law, September 24. At Fair Isle Brewery in Ballard, speakers included a worker owner of Pidgin Cooperative, a recently converted worker-owned restaurant. Participants also heard from People’s Community Law, a cooperative law practice that helped Pidgin organize a worker-owned co-op in Washington state.
Event 2: Jude’s Old Town – a restaurant/bar employee owned cooperative, October 28. Participants learned about the journey of this local cooperative conversion restaurant and bar from two of the worker-owners, including operations, management, structure and learnings.
Event 3: Housing Cooperatives with Ten Penny Studio, November 6. We toured the housing co-op in construction and heard from Kelly Sommerfield, principal architect at Ten Penny Studio, who gave a brief overview of their Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) co-op project and specifics of their co-housing model.
Event 4: Villa Comunitaria and Rayito de Sol childcare co-op, November 14. We heard about how Villa Comunitaria became interested in the co-op model and launched three different co-ops, why institutional support is helpful to start and sustain co-ops, the co-op ecosystems in the Seattle region, and specifics about the worker-owned child care co-op they launched recently -- Rayito de Sol. This childcare business is co-operatively owned by 12 Latine women.
Mark Paschal hosted us at Jude’s Old Town.
Event 5: Patty Pan Cooperative in Shoreline, January 6. We visited the production facility for Patty Pan, a worker owned food enterprise that runs outposts in multiple farmers markets in Seattle while providing tortillas and frozen goods to groceries and Community Supported Agriculture. Devra, a founder of the co-op, and Trey, one of the other worker owners, talked about their founding/conversion story, and the pros and cons working for worker co-ops.
Event 6: Equinox Studios, January 14, at Georgetown Steam Plant. On this informal tour and talk with Sam Farrazaino of Equinox Studios, we learned about the history of Equinox, a community owned art studio, from its origins to its evolution into a non-profit organizational structure in 2021. Sam talked about the broad scheme of their Georgetown development plans and what led to Watershed Community Development, and gave us a tour of the historic Steam Plant. Read more about Equinox in these two Seattle Times articles: February 2024 and October 2024.
Event 7: Two Different Pathways to Worker Ownership -- Conversion & Start-up, March 10. Two guest speakers in the landscape industry talked about their experiences in operating their business as a worker co-op. One converted an existing business into a worker co-op; the other tried to start a worker owned landscape business from ground up. Speakers:
Bret Kenney, a founding worker-owner at The Peoples Gardening Collective. PGC was previously the landscaping division of the City People's Garden Store. In 2016, the employees of the division organized into a stand-alone worker co-op as PGC.
Emme Routon, a founder of Plot Twist Wildlife Gardens, dedicated to improving the ecological well-being of the Seattle area, one yard at a time. Emme has tried to structure the company as a worker co-op.
Event 8: Cooperator Meet-up: Ecosystem Builder Day, March 17. (See the story above.) Panelists from across the regional cooperative and social enterprise ecosystem gave a 10-minute presentation on their work to create more worker-owned cooperatives and employee-owned enterprises, followed by a moderated conversation among all panelists and short Q&A. We learned more about the work these organizations are doing in support of different aspects of a regional cooperative and worker-owned ecosystem!
Panelists:
Fred Medlicott: Co-op developer at NWCDC, helping worker co-ops and housing co-ops to start or convert in Seattle metro area.
Michelle Mayther: Vice president at Washington State B-Corp Collective, an umbrella org for B Corp certified companies in our state.
Brian Boland: Delta Fund & Unlock Ownership Fund – Upstream investor investing into loan funds or equity funds or non-profits that promote employee ownership
Linda Womack: Washington State Department of Commerce – she is managing the employee ownership program
Mike Seo: Portfolio manager at Shared Capital – loan fund investing into worker co-ops and employee ownership trusts
About the Learning Community
The COO Learning Community invests in community capacity building and innovation. This means we support and create resources for shared learning and strengthened relationships, and to support the skills and strategies identified by communities that will create real material change – including systems and policies that support community capacity and norms for self-determination, and pro-equity infrastructures, systems and practices. We believe that ultimately this will lead to a region where King County communities have the resources, capacity and power for healthy and thriving lives.
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